Home from Travels

We had a great time on our recent trip to Boise, Idaho this past week. We spent the first night at our daughter's home in Richland, then drove south from there to Boise. We had our oldest grandaughter and one of the younger ones traveling with us, which made for some cute and interesting discussions in the car. The first night of the family reunion was a pizza party at Louie's, where we had wonderful food and a crowd of 30-40 family members. Lots of good time chatting with everyone. It's been 9 years since we've had a reunion, so lots of catching up to do. Friday, we all went to Julia Davis Park where the kids played softball and the grownups sat around doing more visiting. We had a great picnic lunch with the usual lots of food. I spent a good deal of the time talking with a cousin who is very excited about genealogy (which I do in my spare time), so we compared notes and I've promised to send her what information I have on parts of our family. Sunday afternoon after lunch at a brother-in-law's house, we traveled on to Nampa, Idaho and stayed with friends for 2 nights. Hubby played golf on Monday in the 100 degree temperatures! We also went to a barbecue at another friend's house.
As for knitting, I worked on my One Row Lace Scarf and it was up to 30 inches long when I discovered an error back down at around the 10 inch length. Because it is a lacy and columnar looking pattern, the mistake really showed up, so riding home in the car, I tinked it clear back to the mistake and corrected. This is a photo from the front seat of the van as we neared home, showing the trees and beautiful sky (and much cooler).

Road Trip - Boise, Idaho

We're leaving tomorrow (Thursday) morning for Boise, Idaho (around 550 miles from here) for hubby's family reunion for a couple of days, then visiting friends and golf for another couple days, so will be "out of the loop" here for a week. I don't know how much Baby Kina knitting I'll be getting done (I hope a lot!). Today I had to rip back 8 rows just because I didn't read the pattern correctly, but have made most of that back up now. I'm to the part where there are all the increases to make the yoke look like it's gathered. In doing so, I found out/realized I had the buttonholes on the wrong side, but decided not to start completely over. I think since the Mamma will be the one buttoning the sweater, she'll appreciate the buttonholes being on the right side - so it's just a design element! Right? I'm still loving this knitting backwards technique - no purling - yeah!!!

So...I'll be talking to you in a week or so and may have some good pictures and some good knitting progress to talk about.

Not Too Old to Teach New Tricks

I can't believe I'm posting two days in a row, but I'm so excited that I learned a new knitting technique: backwards knitting! I taught myself from this YouTube video. This stitch, for those of you who follow me and are not knitters, is to knit backwards to avoid having to purl a whole row, particularly when you are doing lots of stockinette stitch. Also, I understand your knit stitch and backwards knit stitch are a more even tension.
We're having sunshine today (first time in quite a while), so I cast on the Baby Kina sweater this morning, and have only done two rows of backward knitting so far, and hopefully, I'll be speedier at it as I knit more rows. Loving this yarn and the color (see yesterday's post for yarn and color information).

Baby Kina

Baby Kina is the name of the baby sweater I'm going to cast on today. The yarn is from Sunshine Yarns and I'm participating in the Twilight Sunshine-A-Long (SAL). The starting date was June 15th and the ending date is July 15th. I may not get it done in time, but that's fine with me. This yarn is so scrumptious that just to be knitting with it is enough pleasure for me.

This is a picture of the baby sweater, for which I have no upcoming babies (to my knowledge) to give it to. But it'll be a fun knit and one of these days I may become a great-grandma!

WWKIP DAY JUNE 2010

This is how I spent "World Wide Knit In Public Day" 2010 at Frontier Park in Graham, Washington from 10am to 4pm. What a great time was had by all. We had sunshine for the first time in I don't know how many days, and temperature in the 70's instead of the 50's. In fact, we sometimes had to move out of the sun when we got too hot or were afraid we would burn.

For Your Friday enjoyment!

Thought you might like this wonderful video today!

What's been happening?

I've not being doing well, of late, keeping up with the blogging. Don't know what my problem is - just nothing creative coming out of my head.

We spent the past three days in the Tri Cities area of Washington state, visiting with our daughter, husband and 2 g-kids. The g-kids participated in a regional swim meet and came up with a lot of awards and bettered their times in every event. This meet was held in Pasco, Washington at a brand new facility - there are 8 or 10 50m lanes and everything was just "first class". Unlike the weather on the west side of the state where I live, it was quite warm over there - in the high 70's and low 80's and beautiful blue skies. We came home yesterday over White Pass , where there is still snow in places near the top.

I finished my Wide-Eyed Shawlette this weekend and will get some pictures when it's finished blocking. Was nice to get one thing finished. Looking forward to WWKIP Day better known as Worldwide Knit in Public Day, this coming Saturday where we will be knitting in nearby Frontier Park from 10a to 4p. Maybe I can get some of my other unfinished projects completed.

Another great knit give-a-way from Tina "Peacefully Knitting". She's giving away a copy of the new Vogue Stitchionary Vol. 5, Lace Knitting The deadline is Sunday, June 13th, at midnight, so why don't you hop on over to her blog and enter.